There's no done deal on Spiorad na Mara reality

​There is no done deal or fixed-in-stone project. The barriers to delivery remain formidable. It is in the developers’ interests to address legitimate issues raised through consultation in order to hasten the consenting process which itself is only part of a complex journey in volatile economic conditions.

This week, leaflets started to be delivered to 11,500 properties on the islands. They carry details of exhibitions, events and “information clinics” which will be held throughout June. What was learned from the first round of consultation last autumn will be incorporated into the new presentation.

Since then, Spiorad na Mara has a new project director. Martin Whyte says: “This phase of consultation is massively important. The message we want to get across is that nothing is finalised yet. Where there are concerns, we want to listen and wherever possible, find solutions or middle ground”.

For example, he says, it is still not certain if Spiorad na Mara will require a sub-station on the west side of the island. That will depend on the final configuration of turbines and the cables that come ashore. This in itself is quite a big variable to be determined in the months ahead.

By the third quarter of this year, Martin’s team hope to be in a position to lodge two planning applications – one with the Scottish Government for offshore works and the other with Comhairle nan Eilean Siar for onshore.

Before then, the project will have to develop an Environmental Impact Assessment which will, says Martin, “form the backbone of the planning applications”. This is the process that Public Consultation 2 will set out to inform, dealing with a whole range of impacts – visual, noise, traffic, socio-economic … The planning applications which emerge will be wide enough to retain “flexibility” as the project continues to evolve.

The planning consultation may also help define the forces which support and oppose Spiorad na Mara, and these are still difficult to quantify. At one end of the spectrum are those who see it as an undisputed good which can only bring economic and social benefit to an island which is badly in need of both.

At the other, there is a body of implacable opposition – just as there was when plans emerged 20-odd years ago for a large-scale onshore windfarm. At that time, the opposition prevailed and Barvas Moor remained pristine while the economic opportunity evaporated.

It is history which hangs heavily over the current debate and serves as a timely reminder that there is a long way to go between plans and delivery, with formidable hurdles to clear along the way, not to mention unpredictable external forces. That is as true now as it was two decades ago.

Most islanders probably occupy middle ground, their views being conditional on the balance sheet between positive and negative impacts. On the one hand, jobs and community benefits; on the other, the possibility of large scale industrial activity without the infrastructure to support it.

That is the balance of arguments which will unfold in much more detail over the next few months with no certainty that Spiorad na Mara will ever happen. That is, when you think about it, a pretty bizarre state of affairs. Plans for a £700 million interconnector are largely predicated upon it and these are moving ahead at pace.

In a rational world, an investment decision of that scale would follow the consenting of projects necessary to support it. In the irrational world we occupy, the ScotWind licences – including Spiorad na Mara and Magnora, which would follow – were issued by the Scottish Government without that degree of certainty.

Indeed, at some point over the next few years, assuming that planning consents have been granted, Spiorad na Mara will find itself in competition with other ScotWind projects for subsidy through the Contract for Difference system which is a Dutch auction that produces losers as well as winners.

THE MAN who now has the job of navigating a course through this minefield, Martin Whyte, was appointed project director for Spiorad na Mara in January of this year, bringing an impressive back story of relevant experience to the role.

An Aberdonian who did his Masters at Heriot Watt University in renewable energy engineering, Martin has, over the past 16 years, been involved in delivery of major offshore wind projects worldwide – experiences which have taught him a lot about listening to conflicting opinions and trying to find that elusive middle course.

For example, he worked on the Vineyard Wind project to develop a 62 turbine, 800 MW windfarm off the coast of Massachusetts, the first major offshore wind development in the US. “There were strong voices to listen to within the fishing community along with many resourceful residents in Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket who expressed robust opinions!

“But the native islanders saw opportunities and Massachusetts more widely was anxious to develop a supply chain. We spent a lot of time going round local suppliers and meeting communities. Initially it wasn’t easy but eventually we got there and it is now operational”.

Martin spent 11 years with Scottish Power and its parent company, Iberdrola, who have investments all over the world. He then spent a couple of years with Corio Generation and worked on taking a 500MW windfarm off the coast of Connemara through the consenting process; a project called Sceirde Rocks. Corio is owned by the Australian finance house, Macquarie.

On the face of it, this project is roughly similar to Spiorad na Mara; also quite close to shore and also involving relationships with a dispersed Gaeltacht community. The project was one of six around Ireland, and the only one on the west coast which was included in the Irish Government’s offshore wind plans.

However, within the past couple of weeks, there have been developments which underline just how fickle the market can be and why chickens, not to mention community benefits, should not be counted until they are hatched. Corio abruptly announced they have abandoned the project.

“Given challenging market conditions in the offshore wind sector”, they said, “Corio Generation is refocusing its global operations to prioritise the development of a smaller portfolio of projects which have the clearest route through to construction”. And with that, the 70 million euros fund they had negotiated with the local community went into limbo, along with the windfarm.

None of the ScotWind projects will be immune from the same kind of market forces. Indeed, Northland Power was a signatory – along with the other big multinationals like Scottish Power and SSE – to a letter that contained a thinly-veiled threat that zonal pricing could seriously affect investment decisions, if it is adopted by government.

FOR MARTIN Whyte and his team, these are future factors beyond their control. Their job is to get on with developing the project, building trust within the island, establishing supply links with local companies and so on. Northland cannot be faulted for their approach to these objectives and intend to continue in the same way.

The £5 million a year fund negotiated with community-owned estates, the connections that are being developed with Navantia at Arnish, the commitments to prioritise local employment opportunities, the scholarships announced last week … each is evidence of serious intent to garner local support or at least acceptance among all but the most irreconcilable.

Martin is particularly committed to ensuring that by the time Spiorad na Mara is due to come onstream – which should, with a few fair winds, be by 2030 - there will be a local workforce with the skills required to fill the 80 to a 100 long-term jobs that the windfarm would create. That perhaps is the biggest “community benefit” prize of all.

THE MOST basic issue – the siting of Spiorad na Mara - is outwith the control of the developers. It was not they who designated the close- to-shore location of the “N4” ScotWind site which is probably the complaint that gives rise to most misgivings. Northland just applied for the licence and won.

As previously reported here, pressure for a close-to-shore site – on the landward side of the international shipping channel – came from Comhairle nan Eilean Siar. In 2018, they advised: “The Comhairle would ask Marine Scotland to guard against any assumption that development in the area landward of the IMO shipping route would be unacceptable on visual grounds”.

Hitherto, since 2010, the maps had shown N4 to the west of the shipping route. When the Scottish Government formally consulted on ScotWind sites, the Comhairle added the caveat that “community reaction to turbine visibility should be tested before this option is disregarded”.

That “testing” did not happen before the list of ScotWind sites was published in 2022, with N4 having moved inside the shipping lane to within five kilometres of shore – making it a complete outlier on the ScotWind map. The Scottish Government then pocketed £16.2 million from Northland for the licence – with none of it coming to the Western Isles.

While this is now past history, albeit with significant implications, Martin Whyte would welcome reinforcement of the message that Northland are not responsible for the site designation. “It would be helpful to us”, he says, “if the Marine Directorate, who did the spatial planning, continue to explain the process that has happened here”.

Understandably, there is a school of thought that the Scottish Government would not have allocated a licence to Northland for “N4” and that Ofgem would not have approved a £700 million interconnector if everything else was not guaranteed to fall into place.

Rightly or wrongly, that is not the reality and in the months ahead, the island community needs to consider the implications of failure, as well as what success can deliver, if and when Spiorad na Mara becomes reality.